Bonum Certa Men Certa

With Novell's OOXML Support, Microsoft Lobbies and Deceives in the Philippines

When deception gets named "business as usual"

Remember CompTIA's OOXML lobbying in the Philippines? It is yet another Microsoft lobby by proxy that is pretty recent (November 2007). Well, this charade is far from over and it even goes further than this. Recall our recent writings about Microsoft lobbying in the Philippines. According to the press in the Philippines, Microsoft tries to characterise OOXML as an 'open standard' and it even uses Novell as an example of OOXML support.

Other vendors supporting openXML are Apple, Intel, Novell and Toshiba, among others, Microsoft said.


Let's quickly review those candidates, shall we?

  1. Apple is an interesting situation because the company made several deals with Microsoft, even recently. This included cross-licensing and we have already debated the effects of it on OOXML.


  2. Novell, as well already know, must support OOXML because its cash infusion from Microsoft made it a condition. This is one case among several where Microsoft literally bought OOXML from competing players in industry, but this type of purchase was made too subtle to attract attention and bring scrutiny.


  3. Toshiba is Microsoft's Zune partner and HD-DVD partner. We already witnessed some ugly stories where Microsoft is claimed to have virtually bribed studios to embrace HD-DVD at Blu-ray's expense. The accusations have no 'smoking gun' to show, but fairly compelling evidence is around (even from the New York Times). There is no place for ethics in such format 'wars'.


  4. Intel needn't have further explanation here. Just watch the OLPC update which was posted here a couple of hours ago. Those two companies, Microsoft and Intel, always work in tandem.


Corel, as well 3 Linux companies which have all signed 'protection' deals with Microsoft, could be added to that list. Thanks to the GNOME Foundation, even a Free software project can now be described as "support".

It is natural to assume that yet again, Microsoft not only spins OOXML (the company's lies about OOXML are well-documented in this Web site), but it also 'buys' mindshare from companies which then serve as mutual proxies.

There is much more going on in the Philippines. Days ago we mentioned Microsoft's ambition to blur the difference between 'open source' and Microsoft's new, self-serving definition of 'open'. They do this again, as reported just a couple of days ago by the local Filipino news.

Although declining to give details, the local executives said the Microsoft open source network lab will test the interoperability of the company's products, including the new operating system Vista, with other environments


Mind the fact that this appears to have nothing to do with open source, and certainly not with Free software. They still strive to hijack approved definitions and exclude Free software to impose patent tax.

Matt Asay seems to have responded to this article as well:

If I moved there, though, would I have to drink Microsoft's Kool-Aid like the Microsoft Philippines country manager has?


One reference comes to mind here. It's about Microsoft's perception that it owns the industry.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
 
Links 08/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Google Again, India/Pakistan Tensions Continue to Grow, New Pope (US) Selected
Links for the day
"Victory Day" - Part I: That is the Day Microsofters Who Assault Women Pay for Their Actions in Foreign Land (Using "Guns for Hire" Who Attack Their Own Country for American Dollars)
Adding a friend from Microsoft to the docket didn't help
Gemini Links 08/05/2025: Practical Gemini Use Case, Shutdown of the Blanket Fort Webring
Links for the day
Links 08/05/2025: "Slop Presidency", US Government Defunds Public Broadcasting
Links for the day
Lasse Fister, Organiser of Libre Graphics Meeting, Points Out the Code of Conduct is Likely Violated by the Same People Who Promote Codes of Conduct (and Then Bully Him Into Cancelling a Keynote)
I am starting to see Lasse Fister as another victim
LLM Slop Attacks Not Only Sites of Free Software Projects But Also Bug Reporting Systems (Time-wasting, in Effect "DDoS")
Microsoft, the leading purveyor and promoter of slop, is a cancer
The Richard Stallman (RMS) "European Tour" Carries on In Spite of the Nuremberg Incident
Some people spoke about how they saw yesterday's talk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 07, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 07, 2025
The CoC Means the Founder of GNU/Linux Cannot Talk and a 72-Year-Old Man With Cancer is Somehow a "Safety" Risk?
Those who don't like RMS are not forced to attend his talks
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: A Shopping Spree and Digital Gardening
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: Pegasus Guilty and a Path Towards EU Without Russian Energy
Links for the day
People Used to Talk
If pets can live a measurably happy life without gadgets and "apps", why can't humans?
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part III: No More Media Lawsuits From Brett Wilson LLP This Year, One Can Only Guess Why
People leak a lot of material to Techrights because they know, based on the track record, that the sources will be protected and whatever gets published will stay online, in full, no matter how stubborn an effort (even lawsuits and blackmail) will be sent its way
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: Adopting GrapheneOS, Further Enshittification of Flickr
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: CISA Gutted, Debt-Saddled (Likely Insolvent) 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Faking Its Financial State Again
Links for the day
Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk at Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic
"For programs that you could run, and for network services that could do your own computing, under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?"
Today We Turn 18.5
The eighteenth "and a half" anniversary
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Microsoft Finally Admits That XBox is ****
In this case, "enshittification" is an understatement
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Comes Shortly. Microsoft Propaganda Sites and Slopforms Powered by Microsoft LLMs Already Spew Out Face-Saving Nonsense.
Based on last month's leak, some very extensive layoffs are now imminent [...] Perhaps we can expect a lot of noise, some of it spewed out by bots, to distract from or belittle the impending mass layoffs
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
Slopwatch: Microsoft Slop, Anti-Linux Slop, and IBM Marketing Itself as a Slop Company
Microsoft-controlled LLM spewing out garbage about "Linux"
Links 06/05/2025: Microsoft's Assassination of Skype After Years of Failure, Slop Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2025: Changing Places and StarGrid for PalmOS
Links for the day
Windows and Microsoft Causing Serious Data Breaches, Media Rushes to Blame That on "Linux" Somehow
While selling us some rusty old propaganda about how moving to Microsoft GitHub (Rust) will improve security
Making Site Archives More Easily Accessible (Approaching 50,000 Blog Posts)
Efforts to censor us have always backfired badly
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part II: Hiding Behind Lawyers and Barristers Who Lack Standards so as to Engage in Classic Corporate Extortion
They're trying to scare people and they misuse their licence to operate
Links 06/05/2025: LLMs/Chatbots Attract More Scrutiny (Getting Worse Over Time), PwC Has Many Layoffs
Links for the day
Thanks for listening. How can this Morse feed be further improved?
Right now any and all feedback on the audio would be helpful
statCounter: Bing's Market Share Lower Right Now Than It Was When LLM Hype Began (With "Bing Chat")
If anybody gains at Google's expense in search, it is BRICS' alternatives such as Yandex
Gemini Links 06/05/2025: Failure and Proxmox Cluster
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 05, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 05, 2025